1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a contact lug for the electrically conductive connection of at least two components, wherein the contact lug is designed to apply a contact pressure to at least one of the components, said contact pressure being exerted by elastic deformation of the contact lug. The invention also relates to a system with one or more such contact lugs, in particular, are designed as a plug connector system.
2. Description of Related Art
In many technical systems it is necessary to transmit a large number of electrical currents. The currents can either represent signals for the communication of information (for example: measured values, analogue or digital), or can serve as supply energy.
Such technical systems are generally of modular construction, whereby the signals or the electrical supply energy is transmitted from one module to the other module. In order to guarantee that the system functions perfectly, this transmission must take place with as little loss as possible.
Previously, systems have been widely used in which the transmission from one module to the next takes place by means of conventional plug connectors. One module is thereby equipped with a plug-formed plug connector and the other module is equipped with a coupler-formed plug connector of one or more or compatible plug connector series (for example SMA, RPC-2.92, SMP, but also other standardized and non-standardized plug-socket connections). Due to the dimensions of the plug connectors, these systems require a lot of construction space, which is not always available. Also, they are not user-friendly for greater numbers of channels because the plug connectors are in most cases coupled by means of screw connections.
Systems are also known in which the transmission is realized by means of one or more contact lugs designed as leaf springs which press against a fixed mating part. These systems permit a higher packing density; however, most exert a relatively low contact pressure. Nonetheless, due to the high number of contacts, in total a considerable plugging force is reached when coupling, which can for example lead to considerable problems during blind plugging of a circuit board.
In order to be able to transmit high supply currents, the contact resistance at the contact points must be kept as low as possible. A decisive factor for the level of the contact resistance is the contact force applied at the contact point. If this is too low, the contact resistance is very high, which leads to an undesired thermal loading of the contact point. In the known systems an attempt is made to avoid this, in that the contact lugs exert the highest possible spring force. It is thereby immaterial whether the contact lugs are deflected radially (plug-socket contact) or axially (as leaf springs). However, this high spring tension also leads to a correspondingly greater plugging force during the coupling process which can in particular be disadvantageous in cases where several connections are to be plugged together in parallel and is by no means user-friendly.
In the case of signal transmission, due to the lower currents involved the main issue is not the thermal loading on the contact points (though this can also be a problem in this case), but the quality of the transmitted signal. Here too, in addition to a wide variety of other measures, an attempt is made to keep the losses at the contact points as low as possible by ensuring the greatest possible contact forces. Since, particularly in the case of systems used for signal transmission, the number of signal paths is very high and the construction space available can be very limited, several problems can arise at once: on the one hand, the contact force for the individual channels should be kept as low as possible in order to keep the total plugging force required within limits. On the other hand, due to the limited space available, the freedom of design in terms of an optimized spring geometry can be very limited. These problems are also exacerbated in that in these signal transmission systems in particular a great number of accurately repeatable plugging cycles is necessary.